The Bet
by Summer Sunrises
Summary: The world, through Percy's eyes, was full of clichés. But when the one time he was sure, so absolutely and incredibly sure that that blonde haired, grey eyed girl was just another one, she blew his mind and left him gasping without even saying a word. That was how he met Annabeth. Modern (slight!) AU. T for a bit of language. Involves awesome music and SO MUCH PERCABETH


**I own nothing but probable carpal tunnel after writing and re-writing this thing.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Percy Jackson's life, as he saw it, was a medley of stereotyped clichés.

From his single-parent-tough-urban-New-Yorker-life to his hand-me-down _everythings_ to that point in his life when he hit the Oh So Dreaded Puberty but then became inexplicably hot and the captain of the swim team because, _damn_, if there was anything that kept him from blowing his own brains out, it was water, to that annoying bleach-blonde girl who followed him around like a lost dog (a decidedly female dog, but a dog nonetheless), his life could be told a thousand different ways by a thousand different storytellers, each with the same cast of characters in the same generic public high school, all inevitably growing up to be the same cookie-cutter cubical desk job workers, pondering over a steaming cup of tasteless coffee why they were so blatantly and simply _ordinary_.

At least, that's what he thought.

But when the one time he was sure, so absolutely and incredibly _there's-no-way-I'm-wrong-about-this-goddammit _sure that that blonde haired, grey eyed girl was just another redundancy, she blew his mind and left him gasping without even saying a word.

That was how he met Annabeth.

* * *

The wind blew lazily through the trees on the warm spring day, dancing with the leaves as it swept through Central Park. The last signs of frost long gone, the afternoon was full of greenery and beauty, a serene getaway from the bustle of the surrounding city. Car horns and people's shouts were drowned out by bird calls and the occasional string ensemble weaving masterpieces for the people walking through the park, creating an air of peace and calm.

"And I swear to God, Nico, if there's another _freaking_ cheerleader that asks me to this Sadie Hawkins' Dance, I'm going to-"

"Alright, alright, asshole, I get it, you've got a lot of girls chasing after you. Boo hoo. What a depressing existence you must lead." Nico's followup eye roll was almost palpable, it was so vastly exaggerated. The two of them were seated in what Percy had dubbed as 'his' pocket of grass in the expanse of the park, a small piece of isolation hidden by surrounding foliage. Their pencils sat, unused, next to the complicated Trigonometry homework that they were blatantly ignoring on the sunny Saturday.

Nico knew of Percy's severe dislike of clichés: hell, he agreed with him, mostly, but when it got to the point where he complained about cheerleaders asking him to dances? Nico would put his sorry ass in his place before he got the wrong idea about what exactly qualified as a problem.

Numero uno: this did not.

Percy and Nico had been best friends since diapers; Maria Di Angelo and Sally Jackson bonded quickly over their lack of husbands, and it was all too soon that they enrolled the two toddlers in the same modestly-priced daycare, taking almost extreme measures to ensure that they would become the best of friends.

Evidently, at least to some extent, they were successful.

But even now, after seventeen years of solid friendship, Nico was getting tired of Percy's antics. He had had enough of the whole "everything's a cliché and nothing will ever change" spiel.

"That's it," he declared, jumping up from his seated position on the bench they had been residing on, "you hate clichés. I hate jumpy-twirly pop music. We are henceforth going to combine the two of these so I can whoop your ass into believing that, _no_, your life is not some repeated story. Okay? Okay."

Slightly dumbfounded at the fact that his best friend just used the word "henceforth," Percy nodded dazedly and waited for the conclusion of his friend's speech, silently hoping it would this time only contain twenty-first century diction.

"You are going to walk up to a girl of your choice in this very park and, upon introducing yourself to said girl, will immediately ask her if her iPod contains either of the following: Justin Bieber or One Direction. If so, then you're right, and the whole world is redundant and you can go on moping about the ordinary-ness of your sorry excuse for a life. But if not, you have to stop gabbing on about your stupid little fetish for clichés."

_"It's not a-"_

"I know, I just wanted to freak you out." He paused for a moment, thinking. "Also, if she actually turns out to be listening to them at this very moment, that's an extra point for you."

Percy pondered the proposition for a moment. While he risked slight humiliation at the prospect of having to introduce himself to a random girl in the vastness of Central Park, he saw no real downside to the bet, and agreed to Nico's criteria. He stuck his hand out in a silent affirmation, eyes blazing with steely, almost-melodramatic determination.

After a few minutes of examining the surrounding area in search of a stereotypical pop-music fan, Percy's eyes rested on a faraway bench where a girl, looking about his age, was sitting, sipping her coffee absentmindedly and looking over a large parcel of papers. Her blonde hair cascaded in princess-curls down her back, once in a while caressing the exposed skin of her lower back, making her shiver as she leaned over the papers frustratedly. He tried to analyze her outward appearance in order to determine if she would be a suitable test subject: her clothes were fashionable yet slightly tomboyish, her shoes worn out but looking to be drawn on by sharpie, something he saw frequently done by the majority of girls in his grade. So, after a moment's deliberation, he turned to Nico, confident in his decision.

* * *

Annabeth knew, from the moment that she entered the park, that it was going to be an awful, awful day.

She had arrived, as per usual, at a chipper seven o' clock in the morning, grabbing her usual coffee and egg sandwich from the small but ever-reliable café that rested on the outskirts of eastern Central Park. The first problems arose there; the cheery French barista, Ophélie, was out sick and her replacement was both completely incompetent and slightly snobby, making for an especially bitter mood to go with her especially bitter coffee.

To add to the list, she had just received her PSAT scores from the College Board, and upon opening them, discovered she only ranked in the ninety-fourth percentile in Writing Mechanics.

Damn her dyslexia; that was the lowest grade she'd gotten in three years.

And so there she sat, doing her small assignments for the following Monday, cursing every now and again as she once more confused _their,_ _they're, _and _there._

And so she stayed until she heard the uncomfortable _hem-hem_ of a visitor and looked up to stare into the most beautiful sea-green eyes she had ever seen.

* * *

Percy's confidence was diminishing with every step that he took towards his mystery girl. _His girl_, he thought, almost scoffing, _what, so she's _mine _now? _

It wasn't as if he had never talked to girls before; he was pretty popular, and had his fair share of female friends. That aside, he still got nervous any time he had to talk to an unknown female. His mother told him it was endearing.

That was the first time he ever ignored his mother.

He strode up to her bench, not even looking back to where he was certain that Nico would be laughing at him. Once he was within speaking distance of the girl, he cleared his throat uncomfortably. She looked up, and all of the air in his body left in one swift motion.

Her face was thin but heart-shaped, and even as she was seated on the bench, he could see that her legs stretched on for miles from her short torso. Her eyes, though, were what really caught his attention. They were a sort of cloudy gray that had him staring into them for a borderline inappropriate length of time.

He was broken out of his appreciative trance by her clearing her throat in a sort of _what-do-you-want-I'm-trying-to-actually-do-something-with-my-life-here_ way, and he cut to the chase.

"Hi," he said, pushing away thoughts of how incredibly and obscenely awkward he sounded (because it was clear that this was the type of interaction where he could say his name to her and chastise himself for sounding like an idiot, so why not just wing it). "My name's Percy, and I, uh, just wanted to ask you if you had either Justin Bieber or One Direction on your iPod. Look, please don't be shy about it, I won't judge you, but I'm just trying to prove a point to my friend."

He had seen her eyebrows raise marginally as he introduced himself, but they were now nearly at her hairline, as if she had taken offense at his implications.

Wordlessly, she unplugged her headphones, unlocked her phone, and turned it to face him. Before he could react, the pressed the _play_ button and music filled the area. He recognized the notes immediately: _Kashmir _by Led Zeppelin.

He grabbed her phone and gripped it like a drowning man, scrolling through her iPod hastily to see if this was simply a cover to hide any jumpy-twirly pop music she might have.

The Killers. The Arctic Monkeys. Cream. AC/DC. Queen. Kansas. The Ramones. The 1975. Freelance Whales (so she had moved into alternative indie stuff. He was cool with that.). All of a sudden, the rotation of the earth seemed both very real and very nauseating, and Percy found himself white-knuckling the armrest of the bench to keep himself steady.

"Um," he heard from next to him, and with a start realized the girl had spoken. She had an oddly melodic quality to her voice, and he found himself wanting to hear her speak more. "Hey, are you okay? You look like you're going to be sick. And I'd much prefer it if you didn't throw up on my phone, thanks."

The girl was attractive. She seemed witty. She had amazing music taste. And she wasn't repulsed by him. "Look," he wheezed before he could stop himself, "I'm just trying really hard not to kiss you right now."

Pause. Hold up. Wait a second. That wasn't supposed to be said out loud. _SHIT_.

For a moment, she was silent. Then, after looking at him for a few seconds, she burst out laughing. "I-I'm sorry, but you look like you're completely beating yourself up for that."

_True._

Percy rubbed the back of his neck nervously, internally searching for some way to rectify the situation. "Yeah, sorry about that, but I was, ah, a bit overwhelmed..."

"By my music taste?"

_Pretty much._ "No! No, just, uh, like, you in general." _Shut the hell up, Percy, I swear to God_.

She collected her papers, gathering them into an organized pile before putting them in her bag. After she finished, she looked up at him, eyes shining with laughter. "You're kind of an idiot, you know that?"

_Oh, trust me, if I didn't before, I certainly do now_. "Pretty much. It's part of my charm." _Whoa! Nice save. Very suave. Where the hell did that even come from?_

More laughter bubbled from her throat as she stood up, looking at him skeptically. "So, is that really the only reason you came over here? Because you wanted to see if I would have Justin Bieber on my phone?"

"I mean, yeah, pretty much." Percy responded, trying to look as unsuspicious as possible. "I mean, I just thought you looked like the type to listen to him, so..." _Wait. Shit. That came out wrong. THAT CAME OUT WRONG- _

"Excuse me?"

"No! No, I didn't-"

She cut him off, fuming. "So you think just because I'm a teenage girl, I listen to Justin Bieber? It probably had something to do with my hair color too, right? Do you think blondes are dumb as well? Is that it? What are you, some sort of prejudiced stereotype machine?"

_Yes. _"No!" He was flailing his arms around now, as if that would somehow convince her of his innocence. "No, it's just, like-"

"What? What is it like?"

"You're just really pretty, and you have, like, a latte or something with you, and you're in his age demographic, so I just assumed- it was wrong, okay? Totally wrong. It sounded way better in my head, and I'm not good with words, dyslexia and all. My bad." Still rambling, Percy took a step back, badgering himself for screwing this up so badly. "I'll, uh, just leave you to your work." He turned on his heel and started back towards Nico, head bowed and eyes shut tight, when he heard it.

"Wait!"

He turned slowly, as if any sudden movements would cause her to change her mind and shoo him away. "Uh, yes?"

Her eyes were softer, almost silver in hue instead of the stormy gunmetal they had been when she was angry. "Did you really assume I listen to Justin Bieber just because you think I'm _pretty?_"

Percy nodded vigorously, for some reason desperately trying to get back into this girl's good graces.

She smiled at him, the movement lighting up her whole face. "Well, obviously you need to brush up on your facts, since Justin Bieber's age demographic, judging by his marketing campaigns and video plots, is about twelve to fifteen years old, and I'm seventeen. Also, this is straight black coffee, not a latte. By the way," she stuck out her hand, the complete switch in her attitude almost giving him whiplash; two minutes ago, she was ready to cut his head off, while now she practically radiated amused smugness. "I'm Annabeth."

He shook her hand. "Percy."

Honestly, what was this beautiful and obviously intelligent girl doing talking to him? Now that he could stare her straight in the face, he saw the small smattering of freckles that ran across her nose, and the owl earrings donned on her ears. She put her hands on her hips as she spoke, and he noticed with a start the AC/DC shirt that ended just above her belly button. His gaze flew back to her face quickly as his own heated up and he gulped audibly, hoping she hadn't seen that he had been looking at her slightly-exposed stomach. The urge to grab her and kiss her surged back through him, but he made a point of making no verbal remark about it this time.

Almost as if Annabeth had read his mind, she suddenly said, "You remember when you said you wanted to kiss me?"

_What, that time I made a complete ass of myself? Yeah, now that you mention it, something comes to mind. Although I'm going to have to admit I was trying very, very hard to forget about it up until this point._ "Yeah, I do."

She looked down at her shoes as she softly kicked at the dirt they were standing on. "Well, I mean, you can if you want to." Her eyes met his as she looked up then, looking almost shy.

_Wait, what? _"Wait, what?"

"You can. Kiss me, I mean. You can kiss me if you want to. I won't stop you."

God, as if he needed any more incentive. While Percy was normally a very logical, straight-thinking individual, he was drawn to Annabeth in a way that he couldn't even explain.

So, he did exactly what he was told. He kissed her.

The moment his mouth got close enough to hers that he could feel her breath, he hesitated. But then, as he saw her eyes sliding shut and her mouth inching ever so closer to his, the words _screw it_ ran through his mind and he closed the gap in between them, losing himself in the moment.

The kiss was like nothing he had ever experienced. While he started off unsure, it took him only a second to melt into it and wrap his arms around her waist, pulling her closer to him as she smiled, reciprocating by wrapping her arms around his neck and tangling them in his hair.

He could feel everything around them then, all at once. His skin prickled from the lazy spring breeze, his scalp burned from her grip on his hair, and his fingers tingled as he entangled them in her golden princess curls. He wasn't sure how long it lasted (How cliché is that?), but when they broke apart, he was pretty sure he was never letting go of her.

That is, until his cell started vibrating in his back pocket, and he scrambled to get it, breaking away from Annabeth's grip with a frightened yelp.

He accepted the call without checking to see who it was, and before he could bark "What?" angrily into the phone, he heard Nico's angry shouts coming from the other end of the call.

_"What the shit are you _doing_, Percy? Jesus Christ, man, I send you over there for two freaking seconds to make a bet and, next thing I know, you're shoving your tongue down her freaking throat! What the hell is wrong with you? What insane combination of drugs did you inject into your bloodstream in order to think that this was a good idea? Jesus Christ!"_

Percy looked over to their designated spot to see Nico gesticulating wildly, obviously shouting into the phone while looking at where he was standing with Annabeth (who was alternating between looking embarrassed and amused at this point). The two boys made eye contact for a moment before Percy threw him some decidedly unkind gestures and, holding up the phone obviously for Nico to see, pressed the End Call button and turned back to Annabeth, who was chuckling softly at his actions.

Before she could react, he leaned down once again, and captured her lips with his. She gave a soft "hmm" of surprise, but kissed him back all the same.

This girl, the one he originally thought to be a cliché, was the most spontaneous and original person he had ever met. He had never even seen anyone like her - her attitude towards life and music were new to him, things he wanted to experience. He wanted to have the outlook on life that she had; where if she wanted something, she took hold of it and brought it down to her. He wanted to keep talking to her, being near her, being with her. She blew his mind and made him rethink everything, and she didn't even know she was doing it. Something about her attracted him, and he knew that he wouldn't be able to stop thinking about her for the next few days, at least. Maybe he would never stop thinking about her. In an odd way (rather, a way he had never felt before), he was okay with that.

He pulled away finally, looking deep into her eyes and grinning at her breathlessness. In that moment, he knew she was just as invested in this as he was.

"So," he said, "what's your favorite song on the _Mothership_ album?"

Screw clichés. He had Annabeth.

* * *

**UGH. Dat ending doe.**

**I'm sorry, though, everybody! It has literally been months (years?) since I've posted anything, and for that I apologize. I've had this in the works for a while, but finally decided to do something about it and get it done over the past few weeks. Oh, and that other thing I had in the works? The large PJO novel I was writing? It got deleted. Yep. All of it. Everything I had written. Screw computers (just kidding I love you take me back)**

**Please review, it would make my day to see what you think of this!**

**Love always, **

**Summer Sunrises**


End file.
